Does Your Drummer Need A Robot Arm?

Cue the John Henry versus the locomotive-like contests. A scientist at Georgia Tech has developed a robotic drumming arm.

According to Paul Ridden’s article, GT professor Gil Weinberg designed the apparatus for drummer Jason Barnes, who, while cleaning out an exhaust duct at a restaurant, “got a nasty shock”:

More than 22,000 volts in fact. The accident eventually led to his right arm being amputated. Not wanting to give up on his percussive passion, he hacked a prosthetic arm. Though effective, it wasn’t ideal. Professor Weinberg and team stepped in and created a double-stick robotic arm.

Attaching to a musician’s shoulder, the device is able to determine the layout of kit components and the direction and proximity of the drummer’s arms thanks to built-in accelerometers–changing playing positions accordingly. Writes Ridden, “If the human arm moves to play a hit-hat, for example, the robot arm adjusts to play the ride cymbal, when the player paradiddles on the snare, the attachment moves to the tom at the side.”